B.C.’s Green party is scrambling to verify whether thousands of new members who signed up to vote in its leadership race are actually real people, with at least one candidate warning the process is so cumbersome it could suppress voter participation.
Emily Lowan, the 24-year-old climate justice activist running for the party’s top job, said the complexity of the new verification system could leave some members unable to cast ballots. Her campaign said it has identified at least a dozen new supporters who never received an email from the party to start the authentication process.
“We are hearing from new members across the province—from students to seniors—that the current verification system is presenting significant challenges,” Lowan said.
“Members report technical issues, a lack of notification and delays in support.”
So far, the BC Green party has verified only 20 per cent of new members. It has urged people to become verified by Sept. 13, when voting opens. The party’s new leader is announced Sept. 24.
“Elections are about giving people a voice, and without change to this process, I'm concerned that many voters will be silenced,” said Lowan.
The Green party is using a combination of online tools, video conferencing and vouching to try and authenticate whether as many as 4,500 people who signed up since Aug. 18, 2024 are eligible to vote. It is not requiring the existing membership base of approximately 5,500 people to undergo that same verification.
The other two leadership contenders, Jonathan Kerr and Adam Bremner-Akins, said they do not have concerns about the process and support party efforts to combat voter fraud.
“The party has a responsibility to the integrity of the election that only real people living in B.C. get a [single] ballot,” said Stefan Jonsson, Green party executive advisor.
“ID verification is unfortunately a necessary part of political party elections nowadays because of the constant threat of foreign interference.
“People are, however, accustomed to similar processes, such as checking in with your passport the day before a flight, or having your ID checked before you can vote in a government election.”
The leadership vote process has been complicated by the Green party’s decision to allow free party memberships for people aged 14-29. Youth simply needed to provide a name, address, phone number and email address—without proof any of those details were real.
The party estimates as many as 1,500 of its 4,500 new members are youth who joined for free. Everyone else had to pay a $10 membership fee. The party is still requiring paid members to go through authentication as well, even though donations done by credit card provide at least some identity verification.
New Green members can choose to send photos of themselves and their identification (such as a driver’s license) to an online verification system run by Canadian company Vaultie—though the process can take more than 48 hours from request to completion.
Green staff are also running Google Meet and Zoom online video conference rooms where people can show their ID documents to party officials. Existing Green members (or a person in a new member’s family) can sign declarations to vouch for the identity of new members.
Jonsson said the process was “informed by multiple CSIS [Canadian Security Intelligence Service] and Elections BC briefings, the federal Commission on Foreign Interference, the advice of security experts and the experience of voters in the federal Liberal leadership contest earlier this year.”
The issue of new memberships is a sensitive one for the party, because the surge of more than 4,000 new signups could play a significant role in determining who wins, especially when weighed against an existing membership base of only approximately 5,500 people.
The Lowan campaign in particular has focused on new signups, calculating an influx of outsiders (and youth in particular) could be the path to defeat rivals Kerr and Bremner-Akins, who have longer histories with the party and potentially more support within the existing membership.
Kerr, a family doctor and Comox city councillor, said he always understood the Green party would conduct verification to prevent fraud and ensure confidence in the race.
“We see verification as a part of our voter identification and get out the vote efforts, which all leadership campaigns should now be focused on carrying out,” Kerr said in a statement.
“Between the outreach of the leadership campaigns and that of the party, there are enough ways to verify that every member who is sufficiently motivated to vote will be able to do so.”
Bremner-Akins said he believes the party’s process is fair, balanced and required to mitigate against outside forces in the race.
“At every stop, I’ve heard a consistent message: our members believe this process is not only fair and balanced, but an essential safeguard to protect against the serious risks of foreign interference,” he said.
With thousands of new members still stuck in limbo, the Green party’s experiment with growth is colliding head-on with concerns over integrity. The party has already been hit with slumping support in recent elections. The last thing it needs now is a controversy to cast doubt over who becomes its next leader.
Rob Shaw has spent more than 17 years covering B.C. politics, now reporting for CHEK News and writing for The Orca/BIV. He is the co-author of the national bestselling book A Matter of Confidence, host of the weekly podcast Political Capital, and a regular guest on CBC Radio.
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